General de Division Phillipe Antoine Ornano (and friend)

This is my Franco-Italian light cavalry command stand for my Borodino IV Corps project. He'll be in charge of the Italian chasseurs of my last posting as well as the Italian 3rd Chasseurs (yet to come) and the French 9th and 19th Chasseurs from my existing collection.

The general is from the Italeri horse artillery set 6018, while the aide is from the Italeri Imperial General Staff set 6016. I've mentioned before that the aide's original headgear is an odd kepi-looking hat, completely inaccurate and out of place, so I've again replaced it, this time with one of the wonderful heads by Franznap.

I'm hoping these dandies will inspire the division to stirring feats of valour in the plain north of Borodino. Watch out Cossacks; he's got his eye on you!

2 ° Cacciatori a Cavallo

Here's my completed regiment of the Italian 2nd Chasseurs for IV Corps using 3 separate kits; the riders' bodies from Italeri set 6080, heads from HaT 8095 and 8167, and horses from Italeri set 6008. The horses from the original set are butt-ugly and also have the wrong saddle furniture, so I used the lovely horses from the hussars set. The officer rides a horse from Italeri 6018, which has the correct shabraque, but isn't quite so animated as the rest of them!

The full regiment in line

Avanti!

Elite company

NCO and colour bearer

Another view of same

Colonel and bugler.
See? He's fine, Phil! Just a little headache ;-)

I love the figure with the bouncing carbine!

Elite trooper

Italian Stallions

This is my first attempt at mobile blogging with both text and pictures added using an app (god, I hate that term, but calling it an application seems worse!) downloaded onto my phone.

These chaps are by Italeri, but suffer the curse of no chin, so I've given them heads from the useful HaT 8095 set again. The officers have heads from the HaT Middle Guard set to give them an air of superiority, while the poor bugler had a wounded head from Lancier Bleu.

This represents the Italian 2nd Chasseurs for my IV Corps Borodino project. I'll quickly paint up their mounts and hopefully have them ready for Friday. Having said that, there's probably little chance they'll be ready in time!

Palouse Wargaming Journal -1st Birthday Great Giveaway!

Jonathan looking très élégant

Jonathan Freitag over at the Palouse Wargaming Journal is celebrating his blog's 1st anniversary with a book giveaway - dashed decent of him, I say! Many happy returns, Jonathon, and may there be many more.

It's an excellent blog with a wide range of historical figures on display. I must (shamefully) admit to not visiting more often and hope to remedy that in the future!

He has a range of books on offer, mainly devoted to the Napoleonic and ECW periods, but also one on the ACW and one on general military history. If none of the books grabs your fancy, he's also open to negotiation for a sample from his lead mountain!

Please visit his blog, become a follower (if you're not already) and sign up for the giveaway, or just revel in his wargaming adventures!

Deuxième Pistolet Pop!

Here's my second regimental artillery piece for the Borodino project. Again, the gun is a Eureka 15mm Austrian 6lber masquerading as a 20mm 3lber, but the artilleryman is different to the last one. This chap is from the lovely Zvezda set 8028, of which I'll be painting more of soon, but he's had a head mod using the Franznap bonnet de police head. The match between figure and head is perfect; it's like the head were made for this figure!

I'm not sure who he's signalling to as he sights the gun, but I love the commanding way he's waving his hand. Perhaps he's telling the back row to pipe down because he has to concentrate!

Here's both pop-guns side by side with extra added smoke wisp to the original gunner's portfire!

Whoop(ing)-de-do!

My painting output has come to a grinding halt as I've been crook for nearly 2 weeks now with what the doctors initially thought might be pertussis, or whooping cough. I tested negative, but that still doesn't make it any easier after coughing my guts out (literally; coughing til you puke isn't fun!). The cough is settling down, but a side effect is that it's ruined my vocal chords, so I can't talk above a whisper without making my throat feel like I'm gargling razor blades. I'm hoping that a side effect of the coughing will be that I'll have a six-pack like a Greek adonis, but as we speak there's still no sign.

How'd I'd look if life were fair..

...but I'm a wargamer! Who am I kidding?

Anyway, there's been a little wargaming action in between coughing spasms; I've started on my Italian chasseurs for IV Corps and another regimental gun base. I'll post photos once they're completed.

Until then, here's some pictures of a 28mm figure I received some time back from Kawe at Grossbeeren1813 in a draw to celebrate his blog milestone. It's part of his wonderful Westfalia Miniatures range of which I regret I don't own more. As they're 28mm figures I'd have to start a whole new collection, which I don't think I could cope with at the moment!

She's a French Cantiniere taking up arms to defend her wares against the enemy. I'm thinking of making a small diorama with her as a centrepiece.

On another note, HMS Frolic has arrived! She is officially 18mm in scale, but I'm hoping that my 1/72nd British Sailors and Marines will fit. If not, I'll  eventually buy an 18mm crew.

Unfortunately, she'll be a project for the new year as I'm still up to my elbows in the Borodino project, the deadline of which is rapidly approaching!

Bavarian Cavalry - Cheveau-Leger No.6 & Regimental Gun

These have taken a longer time than the multitude of infantry battalions I've been churning out! I've been at these for over a month now, and I've got 3 more Bavarian cavalry regiments to go. Hope to get the rest out of the way quicker!

The riders are form HaT set 8030 with the horses from Esci set 218. The horses just seem to be nicer than those that came with the riders. The only drawback with the Esci horses are the lack of reins and circular mold marks on one side of the flanks. I couldn't do anything about mold marks, but I tried to rectify the lack of reins by gluing cotton thread from horses' mouth to riders' fists. It was very fiddly and after a lot of swearing, I'm still not sure if it was worth the effort.

Also completed is the first of 8 regimental guns for VI Corps. The gunner is from HaT set 8229 with a head mod from HaT set 8095 (what else?). Works well, I think! I'll also probably use Zvezda gunners in the mix, too. I'll probably also add the cotton wool smoke to the port-fire at some stage as well.